As I walked down the steps, I caught a whiff of something unpleasant. This house is two levels, the upstairs has the bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen/dining/family great room, and the sun room. Downstairs is the main entrance, the garage, a bonus room, laundry room, and a half bath. The rest of the length of the house is an earth basement accessible with a small, square, access door right outside the bathroom.
We usually keep the door to the laundry area closed because there is just the odor of damp earth, especially if it's been raining a lot. I was in the middle of doing laundry, so the door was open. I thought that maybe that's what the smell was - same smell only stronger because of the open door.
I flipped on the light and walked in.
What the....?!?! There was what looked like mud everywhere and the smell...whooo boy! Wickedly awful.
Then I looked closer. There was standing water on parts of the floor, but no water where I was standing, which meant that it had to be coming from....the bathroom.
I tiptoed over, and opened the bathroom door. Frankly, and without getting all gross and descriptive about it, it looked like the toilet vomited.
I gagged, and retreated.
Oh. No. Nonononononononononononono.
First things first - how bad is the damage? I couldn't really tell, but the entire area wasn't wet, so that was good. But I needed to get things out of the closets - and for that I'd need help. I'd also need help facing that toilet.
Gross.
I cleaned off my feet and came upstairs and had to wake Robert up. Together we went downstairs tag teamed that hussy.
Let me say, I'm usually pretty good in a crisis. I don't normally panic or over react, which is ironic, because I totally tend to panic and over react in a non-crisis situation. Robert, God bless him and his infantry experience, has seen enough actual nasty, disgusting stuff that some little toilet over flow is no big deal. ::shudder:: But for me? That was like walking into a war zone without prior warning. Blech.
We moved everything out of the closets, cleaned up the mess, made sure we could use the upstairs bathrooms and sinks without creating another overflow situation, cleaned ourselves up, and then Robert went back to bed.
But me? I scrubbed myself down with Clorox wipes, then washed my hands, legs and feet with soap and water, slapped some hand sanitizer on for good measure, changed clothes, and tried really hard not to think about what had just happened....
which didn't work. I couldn't go to sleep, didn't want to get into bed, even though I knew I wasn't even the one of us in the worst of the mess and had thoroughly cleaned myself up three times over.
Even now, 24 hours later, I have to fight not to gag when thinking or writing about it. And I can't wash my hands enough today. I swear that odor is actually in my nose permanently.
So hopefully tomorrow the plumber will come and figure out and fix what the problem is. And then I can clean the bathroom and laundry area one to twenty more times, then scrub myself down with bleach and a scouring pad and find a way not to see, um, what I saw last night when I walked into that room when I close my eyes. But what I really want to do is board up that entire area and start using the laundromat in town.
So please excuse me, I need to go and wash my hands and think really hard about puppies and rainbows.
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